Analytical results for laser models producing a beam with sub-Poissonian photon statistics and coherence scaling as the Heisenberg limit

TL;DR

This paper analytically investigates laser models capable of producing sub-Poissonian photon statistics and coherence at the Heisenberg limit, revealing phase squeezing and providing bounds on coherence.

Contribution

It offers an analytical treatment of novel laser models achieving Heisenberg-limited coherence, including characterization of their dynamics and an improved upper bound on coherence.

Findings

Intracavity number dynamics follow an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process.

Intracavity phase dynamics are described by pure phase diffusion.

Derived a tighter upper bound on laser coherence.

Abstract

Recent advances in laser theory have demonstrated that a quantum enhancement is possible for the production of coherence $\mathfrak{C}$ by a continuous-wave laser device. Curiously, natural families of laser models that achieve Heisenberg-limited scaling for coherence produce the most coherence when the beam exhibits sub-Poissonian photon statistics. In this work, we provide an analytical treatment of those novel families of laser models by specializing to a parameter regime that permits a linearization. We characterize the dynamics of each laser system, and find that some of the intuitions from standard laser theory may be applied here. Specifically, the intracavity number dynamics are well-described as an Ornstein-Uhlenbeck process, while the intracavity phase dynamics are well-described in terms of a physically realizable ensemble of pure states, which evolve according to pure phase diffusion. Unlike a standard laser, however, we find that the pure states comprising the ensemble in the Heisenberg-limited lasers are substantially phase squeezed. From our dynamical analysis, we deduce various quantities of the beam for each laser family, including the first- and second-order Glauber coherence functions, intensity noise spectrum, Mandel-Q parameter and coherence $\mathfrak{C}$. In addition, inspired from these phase diffusion dynamics, we derive an upper bound on laser coherence $\mathfrak{C} \lesssim 1.1156 \mu^4$ -- which is tighter by a factor of $3/8$ when compared to that derived in [Baker et al., Nat. Phys. 17 179 (2021)] -- by making one of the assumptions of that paper slightly stronger.